In the example sentence, it’s clear I like three types of food in and of themselves. Remove it and the sentence reads, “I like cake, pizza and ice cream” — leading to the potential to read the last two items as one combination item. I no longer like pizza and ice cream on their own, one could argue; I like pizza and ice cream only when they’re together. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

It was precisely this type of ambiguity that led to the Maine case.

The $10 million comma

In this class action lawsuit, drivers for Oakhurst Dairy sued the company over its failure to grant them overtime pay. According to Maine law, workers are entitled to 1.5 times their normal pay for any hours worked over 40 per week. However, there are exemptions to this rule. Specifically, companies don’t need to pay overtime for the following activities:

Note the end of the opening line, where there is no comma before the “or.”

Oakhurst Dairy argued its drivers did not qualify for overtime because they engage in distribution, and the spirit of the law intended to list “packing for shipment” and “distribution” as two separate exempt activities.

However, the drivers argued the letter of the law said no such thing. Without that telltale Oxford comma, the law could be read to exclude only packing — whether it was packing for shipment or packing for distribution. Distribution by itself, in this case, would not be exempt.

Without that comma, as the judge , this distinction was not clearcut:

Specifically, if that exemption used a serial comma to mark off the last of the activities that it lists, then the exemption would clearly encompass an activity that the drivers perform. And, in that event, the drivers would plainly fall within the exemption and thus outside the overtime law’s protection. But, as it happens, there is no serial comma to be found in the exemption’s list of activities, thus leading to this dispute over whether the drivers fall within the exemption from the overtime law or not.

As a result, the court found in favor of the drivers, costing the dairy an .

To comma, or not to comma?

As a diehard Oxford comma loyalist, this ruling made my day. While many of the sites I write for as a freelance blogger follow AP style (including this one), which is sans-serial comma, I still sneak one in when it seems needed to avoid potential confusion. This case backs up that habit as more than just an old-school tic I haven’t yet let go.

While the debate may still rage on over whether Oxford commas are necessary all the time, this ruling upholds the practice of using them when they’re essential to ward off ambiguity.

So, who gives a $#%& about an Oxford comma? The answer, according to the courts, is officially: anyone who’s interested in clarity.

(Take that, AP style!)

What do you think? Are you pro-Oxford comma as a rule, or only in specific circumstances?

Kelly Gurnett is a freelance blogger, writer and editor; follow her on Twitter @CordeliaCallsIt.

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The rules of language and punctuation are very important. People generally tend to think those of us who insist on proper language are anal. However, the only way we can communicate with one another is through oral and written language. If communication isn’t clear, problems may arise that can cost money, time, frustration, anger, physical harm, legal issues, and even death. (Notice, please, that I used an Oxford comma.) The rules of language, like manners, aren’t to make life more restrictive. They are to standardize things so that everyone can be comfortable and understand clearly those around them and what is expected and acceptable. It ensures that no one need feel out of place or misunderstood.

Fun article from a grammar perspective, although the writer seems to have made a factual mistake in the paragraph which begins: “Oakhurst Dairy argued…” It distracted and confused me by misstating the dairy’s position, and led me to look up the case file online. I guess there’s Grammar Police and then there’s also Journalism Police. 🙂

Scott, you are correct, I also had to google the case as the description flipped who felt what the lack of an Oxford comma denoted. Although I believe the intent was to except the “packing for shipment or distribution” as a separate activity and the drivers are indeed entitled to overtime.

First, thank you, Scott, for clarifying whose arguments were whose. I also found the article confusing, both for that misrepresentation and for what I suspect may be a misstatement about what the Oxford comma actually changes. (Was the other writer joking, by the way, about “coma” and the repeated misuse of “it’s”?) As a literature professor in four languages, my old school education was that one uses only one comma in listing three items: a, b and c; however, when listing four or more items, each should be separated by a comma: a, b, c, and d. The Oxford comma, instead, requires separating as few as three items each with a comma: a, b, and c. So, when I had to start teaching the Oxford comma to English composition students a quarter of a century ago, I did not find the Oxford comma to be old school but to be new and awkward. So, the argument on the dairy case was easy to understand, as read. Since there were many more than three items, if there was any misreading, it was for want of a simple, standard serial comma, not necessarily an Oxford comma. Or else there was no misreading.

This judgement should be challenged. Comma or not, if “packing for shipment or distribution” was to be viewed as one, then another ‘or’ is required before packing. In any list of items, the last item is separated by ‘and’ or ‘or’.

Grammatically speaking, yes, there should be another comma. But the “or” was used incorrectly and there are only two ways to correct for that. It should have been either “, or packing for shipment or distribution…” OR “packing for shipment, or packing for distribution…”

I think the list is in somewhat chronological order, so packing comes before distributing. Listing the activities and products could have been done simply as: “The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing, shipping or distributing of agricultural produce, meat product, fish product and perishable foods.” Or make a bullet list of all of the items, which was done for the products because “meat and fish product” was written as a single item before the last item. I guess the writers of the law used semicolons to separate the products thinking that would make it clearer.

A bigger problem is often the choice of words, especially in international communication. Should shipping be included in the list because it is different from distributing? (Excuse me, sir, I do distributing. The shipping clerks do the shipping.) Do “perishable foods” include beverages? There are court cases that are decided on the meaning of one word.

There is a story about the international misunderstanding of one word costing a company millions of dollars. Globish (www.globish.com) was created using only 1500 English words to try to minimize this kind of global misunderstanding caused by vocabulary or grammar.

My recent example was in a Spanish speaking country. I had to see a dentist about a broken tooth and got an appointment for a “consultation.” Turns out consultation meant an operation to remove my tooth. Good thing the consultation was only for a tooth.

AP actually revised the stylebook so that the oxford comma can be used to avoid confusion. Check out Grammar Girl’s 562nd episode from March 31, or look up the transcript. The article title is AP Style and Chicago Updates from #ACES2017.

I had the same thought before I forced myself to think only about the comma situation. You’re right, though, switching to a noun instead of a present participle caused a hiccup in the flow of its readabilty.

After rereading the italicized contract excerpt, the intended meaning became grammatically clear:
– The list of excluded activities uses present participles, the final activity being “packing.” The packers could be packing for shipment or for distribution.
– The words “shipment” and “distribution” are both objects of the preposition “for;” that is why the writer of the contract chose nouns, not participles.
– Furthermore, the word “of” is also a preposition. In this case it applies to all of the preceding present participles, not just to the last one (packing). So, each of the eight activities listed are sharing the “of.”

To test the meaning of this excerpt as it is written, one need only rewrite it as eight separate sentences:

This so interesting. I was not aware that there were choices in the use or nonuse in this way. I was taught in grammar school that a comma was not necessary after the last word in the list that occurred before the word and. That was clarification enough. The last two subjects, separated by the word “and” indicates the words were separate and the end of the list.

As with Fran, I was taught to not use a comma before the and. I did not know there was another right way. I, also, did not know there were names for these commas. My, my, how times have changed. I, now, can do it anyway I want and still be correct.

I had to look up what an Oxford comma is. Like you, I had no idea there was a school of thought that a comma could go before the ‘and’ in a list, let alone that it had a name. And why Oxford’?
I also thought that the Oxford comma and the seial comma were one and the same, but an earlier comment seems to suggest they are different. In that case, what is a serial comma?

If the company meant for “packing for shipment or distribution” to be one thing, then the sentence would read: “The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, OR packing for shipment or distribution of”

The sentence as it’s in the contract might at first seem like it needs the comma to avoid confusion, it doesn’t. Without “OR” in there, there is no other grammatical way of reading the sentence in any other than what the company meant.

The sentence as it’s in the contract might at first seem like it needs the comma to avoid confusion, it doesn’t.

This sentence is proof that many people do not understand the difference between a comma and a period. A comma is used to give a pause within a sentence. A period is meant to end it, and a semi-colon is used to join two complete but related sentences.

The sentence as it’s in the contract might at first seem like it needs the comma to avoid confusion. It doesn’t.

The sentence as it’s in the contract might at first seem like it needs the comma to avoid confusion; it doesn’t.

I should think that now business owners trying to stiff workers out of fair pay for their labor care about the Oxford, or serial, comma, seeing as how their failure to use it has cost them millions of dollars.

I have read that the lack of a comma before “and” in a series is the British style, and the use of one is American. Although I don’t know if this is true, I do know that I was always taught to use one here in America. Shame on anyone who tries to cheat workers out of overtime!

If you have no commas at all, like your example, you would be eating a cake pizza with ice cream. Commas are required between things in a list. The argument is whether one is needed before the ‘and’. The list would not be confusing if it read cake, pizza and ice cream.

I have a dog named Marley, and like many dog owners I speak to her like a human. I am certainly not an expert at grammar. And this is likely a different application, but the same principle applies. Clarity. And dogs certainly can’t read. But if I were to show her the two sentences below her reaction would likely be quite different. Let’s go eat, Marley. Means together let’s go eat. Let’s go eat Marley. Means Marley is on the menu. Nasty.

That’s called a noun of direct address. A comma should be used to separate it from the rest of the sentence whether the noun of direct address is placed at the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence.

Correct, it’s the vocative case of the noun, which is usually denoted with a comma. These types of distinctions are generally more important in other languages than English because of declension and also because of English’s emphasis on syntax.

For example:
Horses run free.
A simple declarative sentence in which the author/speaker states an action.

Horses, run free.
This sentence is also simple, but in this one horses are directly addressed and commanded to do an action (imperative tense).

I’m sure you meant to write quotation marks instead of quotes.
“quotation marks” is the noun
“quotes” is the verb (third person singular, present tense)”
I just think that if a person wants to correct others, it’s important to be correct when correcting others.

Absolutely, never do without them. Yes, that gap may look a little large in fully justified but in anything else it looks much better. It is not a case of “evolving style” which we “must accept” and move on.
Mind you, as I am from the Eastern side of the Atlantic, I am also tending to oppose the excessive use of the “z” but I am sure that is a lost cause – given the way that MSoft and Facebook always seem to revert to it!😈

Not sure Maine has any say in federal labor laws that also say hours worked over 40 are 1.5x. I doubt drivers are exempt workers so the whole premise of the court case is in question and, thus, so is this article.

This article is poorly written. The arguments presented are backwards. The company’s argument would not be that it only applies to packing as this article implies. The spirit of the law says that the exemptions would apply to both packing and distribution and the letter of the law (as determined) by the judge was that the exemption only applies to packing.

Yes! Thank you. I kept reading it over and over and it didn’t make sense- the writer has confused the argument of the dairy company with the argument of the workers. For someone who appreciates clarity, it’s quite an oversight.

If the contract intended to exclude distribution from overtime, the contract needed to be written as such. A coma wouldn’t have have clarified that. To clearly exclude distribution from overtime, it should have read

Pro, pro, and pro. I am also a fan–a huge fan–of the em dash. I I am known to get (a teensy bit) parenthetical at times. But thanks to the Millennial generation we can also enjoy the impact of the pack-the-punch period. Halle. Frickin. Lujah.

I teach my students to use the Oxford comma all the time; it is never wrong to use it, but it can be horrendous to omit it.
My favourite example: “I would like to thank my parents, Jesus and Oprah Winfrey.”
I do not claim authorship for the example, but I do think it’s brilliant…and implies that Jesus’s last name is Winfrey. 😁

I think the lack of ambiguity in that case stems from the fact that there are three items in that series. If the author intended to list only two items, she would need to insert another “and”: “bread and butter and pate.” To make that list unambiguous, I think she would need a comma, even though the use of one in a series of two items is generally considered nonstandard: “bread and butter, and pate.” What do you all think?